He sets the groove for a circle of percussionists, establishing beats that he can feel but not hear. He’s a good drummer, especially for a man who has been deaf since childhood. Unlike so much in his life, drumming comes easily, naturally.

Dungey is a key part of a therapeutic drum circle that meets twice-weekly at Park Center, a place that exists to aid people diagnosed with serious and persistent mental illness. Mark Horn, a multi-instrumentalist and the former drummer for country band The Derailers, coordinates the circle that has come to be known as The Rhythm Beaters. Horn is a certified psychiatric rehabilitation practitioner, which means he’s authorized to help people who need help. And the drumming is a way of helping.

“This isn’t about some hippy dippy thing,” Horn said. “It’s not playing Hacky Sack in the park, it’s science. People respond to rhythm in a way that is genetically encoded in their DNA. The response to rhythm is hard-wired into human beings.”

Sounds well and good. But how do we know that this kind of thing really helps? How do we know that musical and rhythmic expression can make people with burdens feel less burdened?

“Well, I’ve got a hearing impaired guy in my band,” Horn said. “He leads the band. He sets the pulse, the heartbeat, and everyone reacts to that. And the groove gets so heavy that he’s able to connect with his deceased father. That’s pretty good.”

“When I play drums, it makes my father smile.”

Charles Dungey is actually Charles Dungey III. I don’t know much about the first, but the second was one of Nashville’s most impressive bass players. He was a musician through and through, one who recorded with J.J. Cale and Hank Crawford, played with Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey, Eartha Kitt and a bunch more. He played in “The Mike Douglas Show” house band, led the string and jazz ensembles at Tennessee State University, taught music history at TSU and jazz at the Nashville Jazz Workshop, and was the first African American to play with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

The great bass man died in 2003 at age 65, after a cerebral hemorrhage, and his namesake never heard him play. Saw him play, just never heard him.

Dungey III knew his father was a musician, but his deafness kept him from grasping the intricacies of the thing. Had Dungey III been able to hear, father and son might have formed a formidable rhythm section of bass and drums. Had he been able to hear, plenty of things might have been different. But the central joy in the father’s life was one that couldn’t be fully understood by the son.

Until now.

“Now he gets to be in a band like his father was,” Horn said. “He told me one day that he felt like his father could hear us, and his father was proud of us.”

Dungey III, who has been a musician since The Rhythm Beaters first got together in 2009, said, through an interpreter, “When I play drums it makes my father smile.”

“I tap a wood block, and keep up good rhythm.”

The rest of The Rhythm Beaters aren’t children of musical notables. For them, the circle isn’t a way to connect with parents, it’s a way to connect with each other, and to express something of how they’re feeling about themselves and the world. In that sense, they’re a lot like the rest of Nashville’s songwriters, players and singers. In another way, they’re different from most of Music City’s musicians: The Beaters aren’t a commercial entity, they’re in it purely for love of the musical moment.

“So many people, when they come here, they’re broken,” said Park Center president and chief operating officer Barbara Quinn. “Not only has a mental illness shattered them, but there’s a stigma attached to that mental illness..... Maybe their illness is preventing them from forming relationships. Music moves a lot of people. They can work individually, have their own beat going on, but also be a part of the group.”

Each Rhythm Beater is a vital part of a cohesive rhythmic whole, of a smiling, dancing community. And Horn seeks to convey connections between musical lessons and life tools.

“We talk about how different aspects of it reflect their recovery,” Horn said. “If you’re playing in a groove and the groove just falls apart, does that mean you stop altogether and quit? Or does that mean you stop and see wherever you are and then get back in? Or do you just play through it until it gets back in the groove?”

Most of The Rhythm Beaters like to play through, until everything gets back into the groove. Most of them really just like to play.

“I tap a wood block, and keep up good rhythm,” said one of the Park Center members, who was, to say the least, not much of a joiner before he joined The Rhythm Beaters. “I was the bookworm in elementary school..... I’m borderline diabetic. A little stress built up inside of me. But this is a great outlet. Tension, anxiety, stress..... I feel a lot better after I play the block.”

“One, two, three, four, FIVE!”

The Rhythm Beaters play Monday and Friday mornings at Park Center, but they also play out in Nashville, whenever a chance arises. They’ve done War Memorial Auditorium, and they visit other agencies around Nashville, roughly once a month. The band’s members have struggles, but they also have triumphs, and the group has taught them much about cooperation, intuition and working together.

One recent Monday, Dungey held the largest drums in the group with a strap in his left hand, while playing the rhythm with his right hand. Horn sat next to him, offering visual cues as to tempo and feel.

Various Beaters played various drums and percussion instruments. Some shook plastic bottles with rice inside. Jack concentrated on his wood block and shouted, “Yeah, that’s it” when the groove got good. One woman danced. A man counted down the end of a song by shouting, “One, two, three, four, FIVE!,” signaling with his right hand so Dungey could get the joke: This music only has four beats to a measure, so the five is superfluous, and funny.

Everyone except Dungey listened, reacted and adapted. Dungey just reacts and adapts, though he can feel the beat if he’s close enough to Horn’s djembe drum. He smiled often, particularly at the “Five!” shout.”

“What I see is people growing, and having more confidence, and that’s part of recovery,” said Park Center development director Beverly Grant.

There are other parts to recovery, as well. The goal is to help empower Park Center members with tools to help them live full and complete lives. A mental illness diagnosis isn’t a sentence to a life unfulfilled, just as a son’s lack of hearing doesn’t deny a connection to a father defined by music.

“Traditionally, shamans have used drums to transport themselves out of the earthly world into other dimensions, to get the healing power that they needed,” Horn said. “So why couldn’t it be true that Charles’ dad hears us playing and is proud of his son?”

I don’t know why that couldn’t be true, anymore than I know why it could. But I know that on Monday mornings, Charles Dungey III pounds the big drum. And I know it sounds good and soulful, and it makes him happier. And I know his friends gather around him in a community of groove and smiles.

I know that the pulse is in Dungey’s right hand, and that the joke is on the “five.”

And that the whole thing sounds easy and natural.

And that Thanksgiving comes every Monday and Friday morning, in a polyrhythmic whirl.